Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host - by the Power of God - thrust into hell, Satan and all the evil spirits, who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.

Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...

Saturday, 3 December 2016

"Jesus told St. Faustina that He comes to every soul three times at the time of death." My ex-husband committed suicide, and I have always hoped that at the hour of his death that he realized that God wasn't the Big Meanie in the Sky that he had been fighting."

I repeat this because I have been looking for ways to explain various situations, doctrines, practices, etc. of the Faith - to children.
It's hard.
It's really hard.
Sometimes when you are fooled, rather, you've fooled yourself into thinking you've succeeded, you find yourself like the couple who thought they'd succeed with their children and the Ten Commandments.
"Hey," said a small one at bedtime, who really glommed onto the 6th, "We should write a book! Curious George commits Adultery!"
Anyway, I'm not sure this is good, or true, or non-insulting to the Chosen People, but it occurred to me recently, that the Big Meanie in the Sky, the one in the Old Testament that Abraham had to try to wheedle the safety of the Gomorrahans out of, had a bit in common with the parents of adolescents.

Teenagers often completely misunderstand the emotions on adults' faces.
"My parents are pissed off because I went and and did xxx ...." when the expression on Mom and Dad'sf aces was really terror and relief at the stupid and dangerous thing their child has just survived.

Is the Angry Father glowering down from the heavens, the vengeful law-giver simply a misinterpretation on the part of adolescent humanity?

... you thought I was going to say, "Christ," didn't you?
No, the'res more than one answer, boys and girls.
It turns out ignorance of scripture leaves a gaping lacuna in the study of sexual sociology.
To whit:

The work of sociologists has long been concerned with the relationship between urbanization and sexuality, especially in the form of visible clusters or neighborhoods typified by specific sexual moralities or practices. Identification of 'vice areas' and, latterly, 'gay villages', has been a stock in trade of urban sociology since at least the time of the Chicago School.

Really? at least since the 1920s or '30s?
No one noticing the phenomenon, and how it would affect both the denizens of such areas and, you know..... visitors, and, when you think about it, migration from said urban enclaves, a bit earlier?

It's old, it was dirt cheap, and it's starting to malfunction so frequently, and freeze requiring restarts thats it is almost useless.
So, I'm going through everything actually on it, rather than preserved for posterity somewhere in the ether, and I am at a loss - why did I once think it necessary to remember that Sheldon Cooper's proposed nicknames for Amy Farrah Fowler included Princess Corncob, Gollum, and Fester?

Assuming post-synodal exhortations are magisterial, (I am not convinced they are) and magisterial teachings may lawfully be developed, but not negated, (of this, I am convnced.)

Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage.This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children's upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they "take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples."Similarly, the respect due to the sacrament of Matrimony, to the couples themselves and their families, and also to the community of the faithful, forbids any pastor, for whatever reason or pretext even of a pastoral nature, to perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced people who remarry. Such ceremonies would give the impression of the celebration of a new sacramentally valid marriage, and would thus lead people into error concerning the indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage.

Thursday, 24 November 2016

“Answers to dubia are devices that allow some people to reconcile point A to contradictory point B very fast while other people reconcile point B to point A very fast. People who believe point C, being a point contradicting both A and B, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to understand it, and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to understand it. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out what the hell they wanted to believe and be able to laugh when people compare them to one of Brad Dourif's more unsavory characters.”
"Crewman Lon Suder?"
"No."
"But what ARE the answers? no one will tell us!"
“But the answers to the dubia were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Cardinal Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in a footnote on page 237 of the longest document in papal history - I stopped counting at 59,000 - and in a contradictory private letter, which was marked... well, 'private', and they were in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
"Well, there you are."

Sunday, 20 November 2016

I wonder why some elderly people, who were raised with the old Latin Mass, nevertheless hate it. And I ask myself: Why so much rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something, insecurity or even something else. Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.
But who am I to judge?

I reflected on something listening to the readings this morning, not for the first time.
I'm sure everyone has heard the standard Christmas sermon more than once, the one where the shepherds play a large, heart-tuggin part.
"Isn't it remarkable," says Father, "that the angel firt gives the glad tidings to the lowliest of the lowly, the shepherds. Shepherds was despised by decent people in the first century, they were not allowed -"

Wait a minute.
David was a shepherd.
Abraham was a shepherd.

God promises, over and over again in the Old Testament, to send a Shepherd to govern His people! was He thus threatening to shame them?

Or, despite what The First Nowell says, are sermonizers making too much of the poverty of the shepherds the better to preach on the purported "preferential option for the poor"?

(Exodus, of course, instructs the chosen people NOT to "favor the poor in a lawsuit".)

Tuesday, 15 November 2016

A compelling faux dialogue between an older parish priest and a younger.
A bit of polemic, some improbable as conversation, but it covers some very important matters about liturgy, the "new evangelization", misguided empowerment of the laity, and above all, catechesis - that is, the handing on as if an echo The Truth.

If the standards are set low, it sends the message that what is taking place is not of great importance. Therefore it makes sense that about 70 % of Catholics do not believe in the true-presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Even our social-justice events rarely speak the name of Jesus and give him the glory in such activity. We have pushed God aside as a politically incorrect name to avoid mentioning. We are purposefully making Christ anonymous, and someone who loves Him wouldn’t do that…ever.

In sharing this, I wish to declare up front that I believe in climate change, I believe human agency is behind some of it and I believe there are steps we can take to either slow or exacerbate it.
I know to some FbTw & IR LFs this means I am only common-sensical, to other Fb Tw & IRL Fs that I am a Useful Idiot. Fine, not germane to my point.
My point is that hyperbole helps no one convince others, and ignoring or belittling others' priorities is unlikely to sway them to your POV.
And I believe anyone of faith, (and despite the rise of the "nones" we are mostly people of faith, even if we belong to the Temple of I'mNotReligiousButI'mSpritual,) anyone who believes that this life is not the whole of our existence, would have trouble with this line of reasoning:

"Humans are facing the most important question in their history..."

Because yes, they are, but,

...whether organized human life will survive in anything like the form we know."

ain't it.
The most important question is faced by each of us individually and in concert, and we face it today and we have all faced it throughout human existence.
The long term inhabitability of the rock on which we live only matters in so far as it is useful to us in the pursuit of virtue, which lies in valuing our fellow man.
Damaging the earth and the environment is wrong because it makes the lives of the least fortunate among us harder or even impossible.
That is why, pace Pope Francis, care for the earth, specifically, will never be one of the chief works of mercy - hypothesizing some sci-fi scenario of destruction of this planet from without, and mass emigration to some other world in some other star system possible demonstrates that preservation of this particular planet and its environment is only a means, not an end.
Care for Creation (which I believe is what the Holy Father said,) is vital, morally speaking, care for the earth no more so than care for the sidewalk in front of my house on which my neighbor might tip.
So any agenda, any plan, any ideology for arriving at the best we as a race, as a species can be, that prioritizes the atmosphere, a river, other species, in other words mere resources while countenancing the murder of our inconveniently resource-grabbing unborn fellow human beings, is so self-contradictory and short-sighted as to be doomed to failure.
Eternity.
Strangely, the author of the article seems to realize it deep down:

The consequences of this election cannot be understated, and we will have to live with them forever.

Monday, 14 November 2016

Wait now, what?
No, of course not. But the request has been made, the dubia submitted.

Out of “deep pastoral concern,” four cardinals have taken the very rare step of publicizing five questions they have sent Pope Francis in a bid to clear up “grave disorientation and great confusion” surrounding his summary document on the Synod on the Family, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love).The cardinals — Italian Carlo Caffarra, American Raymond Burke, and Germans Walter Brandmüller and Joachim Meisner — sent the five questions, called dubia (Latin for ‘doubts’) to the Holy Father and Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on Sept. 19, along with an accompanying letter.

You've gotta admire the charitable persistence of these men.
And this seems an apt quotation with when considering what the ambiguities we so far have concerning the Holy Father's document:

The Church is intolerant in principle because she believes; she is tolerant in practice because she loves. The enemies of the Church are tolerant in principle because they do not believe; they are intolerant in practice because they do not love.

So, anything goin' on?
I was ambivalent about casting my vote[s], I am ambivalent about the results.
But truly, it would be an ill wind that blew nobody good, and I am quite positive somebody will be blown.

Wednesday, 19 October 2016

Outlandish science fiction about a dystopian future.....
BECAUSE, WHY WAIT FOR THE FUTURE?????
Maybe they could get Michael Caine to do the adverts - get a bunch of happy old people sitting around enjoying life, er.... I mean, enjoying death.
It'll save the insurance companies crazy money.

You've reached the age when giving up is exactly who you are, this is the age of knowing how to make things stop happening. So why let the preciousness and dignity of life or morality get in the way? Talk to your doctor about Offex. (And talk to your parents' doctors, while you'r at it - it's the loving and fiscally responsible thing to do.)

Should I copyright that drug name? It seems right for an assisted suicide pill, and it's got an "x" in it.
But perhaps "Assisteeze" would be better, "z" is a kewl letter too.

(They'll need a catchy jingle like the one for pills for erectile dysfunction)

Saturday, 15 October 2016

You see, this "MUA" atrocity happens every year in some lucky Argentinian city.
According to police reports, the "National Women's March"...

...attempted to burn down the Cathedral Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in the city of Rosario...The attack was planned for the night of Sunday 9th September during the 31st National Women's march attended by 70,000 women. Maximiliano Pullaro, the Minister of Security for Santa Fe, acknowledged that if police had not intervened with tear gas and rubber bullets the protesters would have burnt down the cathedral with eight firebombs.
In previous weeks pro-abortionists had used social media to incite protesters to burn down the cathedral. In response to this, the group Argentina Alert circulated a petition calling on the authorities and police to protect the cathedral, collecting over 13,500 signatures. A barrier was erected around part of the cathedral in an attempt to protect it from arson.In recent years the National Women's March has been the occasion for violent and blasphemous attacks against the cathedrals in which the protests have been held. In 2013 1500 young Catholic heroes formed a human shield to protect the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista

But this year, there was a special twist.
The police intervened! (Hard to fathom, but they don't, always.)

During Saturday afternoon semi-naked women danced around an effigy of Pope Francis chanting slogans demanding the legalisation of abortion... [the mob] made a determined attempt to burn down the cathedral with a group tearing down the protective barrier in order to enter the cathedral. A squad of police emerged from inside the cathedral to push back the attackers with their shields. The feminists attacked the police with stones, bottles and iron bars, injuring some of the police. One was injured by a gunshot and another policeman was burnt by a Molotov bomb thrown by an abortionist. The battle to protect the cathedral from being firebombed by the protesters lasted 30 minutes.

Sadly, there was another surprising feature of the Rosario event

The Archbishop of Rosario, Eduardo Martin, did not support the action taken by the young men to defend the cathedral by praying the rosary and putting themselves in harms way. Archbishop Martin went so far as to describe them as "ultras" whose presence provoked the women.

Watch the video linked on the EWTN site to see on which side the blame for "provocation" lies.
I weep, every year, in gratitude to, and pride in, the men, and this year some young women, who pray and protect the churches.
And I weep, for shame that other members of my sex would behave so shamefully, and I weep in utter in mortification that a member of the Catholic hierarchy could be so spineless, and could be so cruel as to criticize those laypersons who were DOING HIS JOB.

I wouldn't depend on that shepherd to lay down his life for his sheep....

And yet more proof, were it needed that support for abortion -- not those who support abortion, mind you, but the support itself -- that support for abortion is diabolical.

Friday, 14 October 2016

This strikes me as spin. Trying to spin gold out of not dross, but BS.
Emails out of context, fine.
Larger point, fine.
Rupert Murdoch's a bad guy, fine.
Explain this phrase, fine.

This is so typical of what's put out there by the conglomerate of agenda-driven media and political hack spin-meisters, lots of words explaining away everything EXCEPT WHAT PEOPLE ARE REALLY OFFENDED BY.

“It’s an amazing bastardisation of the faith."

Maybe it is. I don't know Murdoch, I don't know what he believes. He strikes me as an insincere opportunist, but he didn't convert, he merely allowed his children to be perhaps raised in the Faith, so he can't be all THAT attracted to it....

"They must be attracted to the systematic thought"

See above. (Though it must be asked at this point, is there something attractive about unsystematic thought that I'm missing, which makes attraction to the systematic objectionable?)

"and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.”

Okay, there we are.Can a reference to the Church's Severely. Backward. Gender Relations. when expressed by an activist for a political movement that seeks to, (and so far has been pretty damned successful at it,) redefine marriage, masculinity and femininity ever really be "simply a fleeting reaction from within the Catholic tradition to something [he] read"?How can it be anything OTHER than, I would agree, not "an expression of contempt for people of faith" as he maintains, but an expression of contempt for the Faith itself, (his faith, putatively) which is the source of the outrage.This is so common from both sides - someone says, or does something awful, someone else expresses outrage, first person refutes accusation no one was making, first person's allies say, "see?"It doesn't wash, John Halpin.

I try to read the Mass lectionary before I attend, sometimes several days, even a week ahead, sometimes my resolve falls through the cracks.
I've been a bit scattered lately, hurricane, laziness, family obligations... I can always find an excuse, not always for what I've done, but certainly for what I've failed to do.

Anyway, hadn't noticed this, but pretty sure I'm not the only one who boggled at the Gospel today

Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees – that is, their hypocrisy. Everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear. For this reason, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in hidden places will be proclaimed on the housetops.

Saturday, 1 October 2016

(Upfront, that is not an actual quote from any of the miscreants in this story, it is a characterization of the CYA of the miscreants in this story.)
About 60 miles southwest of Orlando, a massive sinkhole recently opened up near Mosaic phosphate processing plant in Polk County, allowing an estimated 215 million of gallons of contaminated waste to seep into the Florida soil and aquifer.
The company and government officials have kept the contamination, (not the sinkhole because it's um... HUGE,) secret from the public,
the press, and worst of all from nearby residents who live off well-water for several weeks, as millions of gallons of plant waste and byproduct ran through a 45-foot-wide hole into the earth.
But it's okay, because it's not VERY radioactive, and the governor doesn't own SO much of the companies stock, and only once has the company paid TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS at a county fair for a cake made by the child of the agriculture commissioner.

So trust'em.
They didn't do anything wrong and they won't do it again, even though it wasn't wrong, and even if it was that was the last time, and....

Well, I guess the "and" is that rural resident of Florida have about the same status as inner-city folks in Flint.

Thursday, 29 September 2016

The USCCB says they like the "hopeful, positive tone" of the Holy Father's post-synodal exortation on marriage.
What a joyful optimism must the Holy Father enjoy, to be hopeful and positive about unions, 50% of which he guesses are invalid.
I just don't think it is "myopic" to see the contradictions and ambiguities that rise almost to the level of error, nor do I think to call attention to them indicates a lack of love for or obedience to the Pope.

I had a friend in theatre who used to say of appearing in a lousy vehicle and still giving the best performance you know how, "It's like draggin' a dead horse around the stage and pretending it don't stink."

The USCCB has set itself the task of dragging a rather noisome animal there.
God bless them.

Tuesday, 27 September 2016

We all know the story from this past Sunday's Gospel, the rich man and the poor man who begged at his gate, yearning for scraps from his table.

The Gospel of today, which recounts the story of the rich man and Lazarus, “helps us understand what it means to love,” Francis continued.
He noted that the rich man is not presented as a bad person, but simply as suffering from a “terrible blindness”

Yeah, that's it, got it?
Not. A. Bad. Person.
So......just condemned to eternal damnation for not payin' attention.
You know, Jesus is telling us that the Father somehow allows the rich man to endure agony, to be tormented in fire until the end of time, even though he wasn't a bad person.

Does that sound to you like the way God does things?

Of course, not to worry, because just as with Sodom and Gomorrah, God changes his mind. You remember...

God creates an authentic relationship and pushes us to be daring. As daring as Abraham’s intercession prayer in favor of Sodom. A city upon which nobody would have bet a dime. His intercession prayer and his will to dare save Sodom. The city is saved because some righteous ones are there, even though a few of them. But the city is saved above all because Abraham, a man of prayer, is not a relentless accuser, he doesn’t speak against but in favor.

Monday, 26 September 2016

I am, if it is not too glib to say so, a great "fan" of the Church's "annulment" process. (The scare quotes are in recognition that there is no such thing as annulment in the Church, rather, there is a process for discovering the nullity of a putative marriage.)
The gracious and generous manner in which the process is handled in this country, at least, has benefited me greatly.
I note this to admit upfront that I am hardly a disinterested party.
It is for this reason that while it seems wrong to me, I cannot oppose the Holy Father's reform of said process - I know that the American experience is not the universal expedience, and another discipline may be necessary in other parts of the Catholic, and catholic, world.
And the fact is, I also was slightly injured by the process in a specific case, that the Tribunal's office is to find the truth, not to kiss boo-boos and make them better.
As it happens, in the case I mention, there were 3 plausible defects, and two of them would have been evident to a blind pig.
Alas for me, a hotshot lawyer, (only newly canon lawyer, after half a lifetime of practicing civil law in his civilian life,) was fascinated by the less obvious one, and insisted upon arguing it, delaying the final decree by months, and moving us past a window of easy attendance by my immediate, far-flung, and fecund family.

One of the disgraces of the annulment process in the United States, (again, stipulating that I am eternally grateful to the process and to those who promulgated it, tho venue shopping didn't come in to it,) was the disparity in the application of Canon Law from diocese to diocese, and the practice of those who were aware of it, to venue shop.

Whatever one makes of the merits of the dispute, one conclusion seems ineluctable: Whether by design or not, what Pope Francis effectively has done is to opt for decentralization on one of the most contentious issues in Catholic life today.Barring some further clarification or decree from Rome, what we now have is individual bishops, or regional groupings of bishops, determining whether the answer is “yes” or “no” in the territory under their jurisdiction.

Yes, exactly - so what is to discourage venue shopping now on a global scale?"Oh, no, I live here but I belong to the GERMAN/Roman Catholic Church so I'm allowed to...."
(I use the Germans as an example because I have little doubt that anyone willing to pay the tax will be admitted, parochial boundaries be damned.)

How would this possibility enhance the unity/fidelity/sanctity of the Body of Christ?

"But the issue which grabbed most attention was the possibility that Pope Francis might change the discipline on Communion for the divorced and remarried,"

is compounding what I think is a terrible error in much of the reporting on the issue.

Is it merely Church "discipline" that sacramental marriage is indissoluble?
Is it merely Church "discipline" that for a married person to have sexual relations with a person other than ones sacramental spouse is adultery?
Is it merely Church "discipline" that adultery is a grave sin?
Is it merely Church "discipline" that receiving Communion when in state of grave sin endangers ones immortal soul even further, compounding the sin?
Is it merely Church "discipline" that those who are in a state of mortal sin with no intention of amendment of life can not be admitted to Communion?

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

I grew up in old houses.
Most of my relatives had old houses
I spent the largest part of my adult life in what was, for all intents and purposes,an historic mansion.
The first house we owned was in sight of its centennial.
The house I live in now is far from new.
I kind of like creaking floor boards and old hardware.
I have said, many times, "Ah, it's just the house settling...." and it made me happier to be settling in to a sofa, my bed, whatever.

Wednesday, 14 September 2016

Admit it, you thought this was going to be about Regensburg, didn't you?
Sorry.
We need to be reminded that although the efforts by the great reformer and patron saint of all Europe certainly found an echo down these centuries in this Future Doctor of the Church, (hereafter, FDotC,) it was another Benedict by whom the Pope Emeritus is said to have been inspired to name himself.

So why should it surprise anyone that he is a nurturer of communion, a bringer of peace?

Catching myself up on some old, (by which, in the Age of Twitter, I mean having occurred this summer,) sectarian shenanigans, which involved a terrible blurring of the line between Faith and political loyalties.
And by "terrible" I do not mean merely extreme, but also very bad. (I may write more about that anon, anon.)
When the argument strayed more onto the churchy side of things, I came across the same quote from the then Cardinal Ratzinger, several times and it tickled, but yes, saddened me, that it was used by both sides in the argument, and both thought it demonstrated the same truth about Pope Benedict, ne Joseph R.
Rad Trads seem to use it as evidence that Ratzinger was an Evil Progressive. Foggy Proggies, likewise used it to prove that Ratz had those fusty old Trads number, and roundly condemned them.
See his words for yourself. In 1982 he wrote:

Was the [2nd Vatican] Council a wrong road that we must now retrace if we are to save the Church? The voices of those who say that it was, are becoming louder and the followers more numerous. Among the more obvious phenomena of the last years must be counted the increasing number of integralist groups in which the desire for piety, for a sense of the mystery, is finding satisfaction. We must be on guard against minimizing these movements. Without a doubt, they represent a sectarian zealotry that is the antithesis of Catholicity. We cannot resist them too firmly.

QED! (whatever you want to D....)

But both used the quote dishonestly, for he continued, in the same paragraph:

But we must likewise ask ourselves, in all earnestness why such contractions and distortions of faith and piety have such an effect and are able to attract those who, by the basic conviction of their faith as well as by personal inclination, are in no way attracted by sectarianism. What drives them into a milieu where they do not belong? Wh have they lost the feeling of being at home in the larger Church? Are all their reproaches unfounded? is it not, for example, really strange that we have never heard bishops react as strongly against distortions in the heart of the liturgy as they react today against a Missal of the Church that, after all, has been in existence since the time of Pius V? Let it be said again: we should not adopt a sectarian attitude, but neither should we omit the examination of conscince to whihc these fact compel us.

I am so tired of dishonesty in debate.

We see that Papa Ratz, as ALWAYS, was moderate, modest and reasonable ..... and above all, CATHOLIC.

Monday, 12 September 2016

I rant regularly about the Lectionary.
Poor Himself, who really doesn't care, has to put up with it, and much of my bluster is no doubt uninformed.
I think the Three Year Cycle is an unmitigated disaster.
I find the suggestion that it is a boon to homilists, who would otherwise have difficulty coming up with material over the years less than compelling - what has put it in their heads that the Gospel text must be the main, or even in the minds of some, only source for their ruminations?
Not only are there three other scriptural texts, (don't forget the psalm or canticle!) every Sunday, and the prescribed Introit and Communion antiphon if they're doing it right, and occult Offertory, (it's still there, albeit veiled from our eyes and banned from our books,) there is the Ordinary.
Why, you could preach on the First Eucharistic Prayer every Sunday for the rest of your days and not exhaust the topic!
(I must interject at this point, one of the finest homilies I ever heard was on the Pax dialogue, delivered by the great Msgr Andrew Wadsworth on Saint Irenaeus' memorial.)
Yesterday for the first time, I noticed that the portion of the prescribed Gospel dealing with the Prodigal is bracketed! It may be left out!
I was unfair in my opinion of a bright and attentive high school student, Catholic schools all the way, who told me she'd never heard that story except in Godspell.
Well, came to learn her parish, with a strong RCIA program, never used the Lenten cycle of readings in which the parable is contained, because they always defaulted to the Year A,
Because ... scrutinies.
And now I realize if she never heard it in late summer, it would have been because, at the (at most 4 times,) it might have come up since she was old enough to understand, (with three years passing in between hearings, mind you,) I know for near certainty that none of those parish priests ever read the long form of anything, especially not in warm weather.

Now this past week I heard something that took me aback, and frankly, with all the licit options made available to celebrants and associates, and sanctioned shortcuts, I've no doubt the man in question thought he was doing anything wrong.
But the deacon simply stopped short after the Beatitudes and left out the... what shall we call them? the "Woes"? the "Damnabilities"?

But woe to you who are rich,for you have received your consolation.But woe to you who are filled now,for you will be hungry.Woe to you who laugh now,for you will grieve and weep.Woe to you when all speak well of you,for their ancestors treated the false prophets in this way.

Poor Fr. Fox.
For saying that a Catholic can, in good conscience, vote for either the lesser of two evils or abstain from voting, he is ripped by a crazy woman, (who makes her choice quite clear.)

evShe uses a tactic I am seeing more and more, not just from crazy commenters, and careless on-the-fly bloggers and conversationalists at parties, but from actual "journalists," and that is to repeat over and over the accusation that ones target has said something "amounting" to something deplorable, but steadfastly refusing to supply actual quotes, even out of context.
The tactic is used by both sides, of course, the Trumpite right winger against Fr Fox, the liberal Twitter over-lord against a Breitbart gadfly.
Too much reading of Jane Austen, and her free indirect speech!All I need to do is vaguely describe what I want people to think you said, and damn you for my words, I needn't actually quote you and be honest about it.

You'd think Catholics especially would balk at such dishonestydeception, lies, this method having been used against the Church for.... well, forever.
(Soon to be saint,) Fulton Sheen, anyone?

“There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.”

Friday, 9 September 2016

The fringe on the left oft circles around and is discovered to be not all that different from the fringe on the right, have you noticed?

"We’re very interested in revealing the truth...and yes we have some material... that will be published"

"I have in my I have here in my hand a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department"

Hate giving them clicks, but I feel compelled to follow links with damning headlines shouting that "so-and-so said/confirmed/claimed that....!" only to find (usually,) that any actual quotes from said person in the know, as opposed to the wishful-thinking gloss of the author, says/confirms/claims nothing of the sort.

I'm not even really disappointed any more, even when it's someone on "my side" doing the prevarication lying.

I admit, it's a little different, it's still painful when the selective quoting and dissembling comes from certain quarters.

Saturday, 3 September 2016

I was taught... that if God ceased even to think about us we would cease to exist. It is only through the power of God that we are. This seems to imply to me that we can be annihilated in body and soul!

Yes. And yes. And no, not really.
Because God knows us.
He knows EVERYTHING, and we, collectively, and each of us individually, are something which He knows.
This is reassuring, for it follows that the Almighty Lord of the Universe cannot cease to know that which He knows, He cannot cease to think about us, He cannot cease to know us, He cannot UNknow us.*
Like Prince Hal, He can, He might, say, "I do not know you," idiomatically denying our acquaintance with Him, (and if we fail in the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy He tells us He most certainly will,) but He will yet have knowledge of us.

The Human Soul Is Immortal.

(*This is like the dumb paradox kids like to address to deny the Lord's omnipotence -"Oh yeah? well can He make a stone so large He can't lift it?")

I understand such heretical nonsense, the denial of our immortal souls, in movies and tv scripts.
It's the warm-fuzzy of the Viaticum/Extreme Unction/Anointing of the Sick the way the "unity candle" is the secular culture's warm-fuzzy of Matrimony, since it doesn't understand the sacramentality of marriage, but knows something is missing is missing without ritual.

Okay?
I understand that, I accept that.

But how is such bull* *t finding its way into Christian thought and speech, into eulogies and sermons and saccharine poems on the back of memorial cards, even into homilies at Catholic funeral Masses?

Stop it.

Just. Stop. It.

So the lonely and friendless in this life will be even more so in the next? your continued existence is dependent on some other human being, and their managing to escape the scourge of Alzheimer's or senile dementia?
What a wonderful world...

(Yeah, yeah, all of this is compounded by "theological discourse" of the sort that may or may not have been conducted by an aging atheist and an elderly member of the hierarchy, but which has been allowed to stand uncontradicted by the latter:

Q: What happens to that lost soul? Will it be punished? And how? A: there is no punishment, but the destruction/annihilation of that soul. All the others will participate in the beatitude of living in the presence of the Father. The souls that are destroyed/annihilated will not take part in that banquet; with the death of the body their journey is finished,)

Are you aware of how dismissively "other" this declares your black readership to be?

#HereIsMyAmericaHow well do we understand the multifaceted lives of black Americans? Or the lives of anyone of color?

2d agoBy BAYETÉ ROSS SMITH

I used to be painfully aware of this casual and unthinking othering in regard to women, (TV Guide would have no trouble describing a crime-fighting duo as "a reformed criminal and a woman," "a hard-nosed cop and a blonde,") and I had to fight this in a former parish where we would have bi-lingual programs and the Spanish was given phonetically.
To consider maleness, or whiteness or English speaking-ness a default is to belittle woman, blacks, Spanish speakers.
Is the white anglophone male even normative anymore?
Shouldn't the flagship of there is no abnormal therefore there is no normal be beyond this?